Monday, 27 September 2010

The bike apple - new cycle parking at Alphen aan den Rijn station

Wednesday 18th August was the opening date for the "Fietsappel" ("Bike Apple"), an unwatched cycle park in the area of the railway station in Alphen aan den Rijn. Travellers and visiters can park their bike for free in this multi storey building of steel in the shape of an Apple. 970 bikes fit within the bike racks in the "apple."

The ‘Fietsappel’ was designed by Wytze Patijn of Kuiper Compagnons. The concept is as an artwork of an apple. The floor is a spiral shaped as an apple. The steel artwork has a width of 27.5 metres and a height of 15.5 metres, the sloped floor goes around the "core" which is a steel column. The outside skin is transparent and gives the impression of space. It was a deliberate choice to make the cycle park feel as open as possible to give a good feeling of social safety.

At the station there are two other parking facilities for cyclists. Under the stationarea is "De Verbinding", which combines a bike tunnel under the railway line with an underground watched cycle park of 1280 parking spaces and next to it there are now two unwatched cycle parks. The "Kerk en Zanen" with 600 places and the new Fietsappel with 970 spaces.
This brings the total number of cycle parking spaces at Alphen aan den Rijn station to 2850. The town has a population of around 72000 people, so there are places for around one in 25 residents to park a bike at the railway station.

6 comments:

Gary
said...

I love the design of this, form and function in one. In contrast, I locked my bicycle at a train station on the Gold Coast (Australia) this morning. 24 bike spaces and I was the only one there using the facilities and it was a perfect blue-sky 20 Deg C day. If only the rest of the world weren't 30 yrs behind the Dutch.

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